Theater of Memory: The Return of the King

Tonight, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens, and countless fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's books and Peter Jackson's big-screen adaptations of them will be flocking to the theater to start another three-year journey through Middle-earth, this blogger among them.  We've been waiting nine years for this movie to arrive, and after the MGM bankruptcy fiasco and a change in directors, the wait is finally over.

My imminent return to the land of elves and wizards has me reminiscing about seeing the final Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King, in theaters for the first time.  I was in seventh grade, and the previous LotR movies had introduced me to a level of superfandom I had never experienced before.  I was completely enraptured in the world Peter Jackson had woven with his incredible cast and crew, and I suddenly had a great interest in the Oscars, another major turning point in my movie-loving life that I owe to Jackson's trilogy.

How deep did my fandom go?  I had a replica of the One Ring that I wore around my neck on a chain before placing it in its Mount Doom holder at night.  Whenever one of the movies was about to be released on DVD (the August following its theatrical release), I would troll Best Buy and Walmart and ask the employees if I could have their marketing pins, which featured characters from the movies (now you can buy a whole set for a pittance on eBay).  Each Christmas, my "big gift" was the boxed set of whatever Extended Edition was most current, and the following weeks would be spent devouring the hours of behind-the-scenes footage, some of the best extras ever featured on a DVD.

Return of the King became my most-seen-in-theaters movie ever, with four viewings.  Not that impressive a figure, but the closest theater was half an hour away and I couldn't drive, so it was something of a feat.  For the fourth go, my mom, for a reason I still don't understand, made me eat a bowl of "chuckwagon beans," a dish I despise but ate ravenously for one last view of Middle-earth until August.

But it was the first time that really stands out.

I wrote a post on Mother's Day about how my mom is my go-to movie buddy, as she loves going to the theater, and she's largely responsible for how much I love movies.  My dad isn't as much of a movie lover, but he and I like to go see good genre stuff together, like X2, Star Trek, and A Bug's Life (okay, not always genre stuff).  Even though I had school and the morning and he had work the next day, my dad took me and my best friend Aaron to see Return of the King at midnight, my first ever midnight show.

I couldn't believe I was staying up so late, and to watch a movie, no less.  I had never gotten to experience such palpable excitement for a movie; it was thrilling to be among a group of people who shared in my passioned fervor for the movie we were about to see.  Aaron and I, being the proud nerds we were (and still are at heart, I'm sure), got up in front of the theater and loudly announced that we would perform Frodo's chicken dance from Bilbo's party in Fellowship of the Ring, which we did, to no acclaim.

By the time the film ended (over and over, with all those fades to black), Aaron and I were a mess of tears.  While many derided the "false" endings, each time the screen showed a new image provided another gasp of happiness, another scene, before the fateful words - "The End" - appeared on screen, sending us into an emotional downward spiral.  The next day, I felt the coolest I ever had, explaining that I had missed my morning classes because I was seeing a movie at midnight.  Craziness.

Because of school, I rarely make it to midnight showings anymore, but I'm glad that I'm able to make an exception for a return to a franchise I love so dearly.